Looking through eyes that are not your own

It's been a little while since I have read a really good book. One that makes me wish that I could just skip school and not come home to play video games, but just to read. In House Rules, by Jodi Piculut (Author of the renowned novel My Sisters Keeper), a child with Asbergers (which I can't spell for my life) is put on trial for murder. I have not figured out who did it yet. After reading for a while, I went downstairs to have dinner, and all of the sudden, I was looking at food as if I was autistic.

It's a weird feeling to have, looking through different eyes. The expression is tossed around often, but to actually have a moment where I could understand what these kids are going through was, well, odd. It's like when you dream about your life, but you play the role of someone else.

Trust me, this little experience has not made me think of myself as some sort of sympathetic person, I do feel for those with autism, but really it just made me think about what life would be like black and white. When you have Asbergers, Every question you are asked is very literal, so you answer it likewise. Say I asked a child with Asbergers if he had the time, he would most likely stare at me and say "How could I possibly have control of the time?"

Though a world of literal questions and answers may seem simple, it would probably be very complicated to follow exactly, which is what we would have to do. Who knows, I couldn't handle that world. But obviously some people are forced to.

Rotten punk kids

       I have cleverly deducted why people hate teenagers so much. Why everyone thinks all of us are mean, obnoxious and rude. It is because of the way we are portrayed in books. I'm sure that someone else has already thought about this, but I have a new way of looking at it.
       Say an elderly man is reading a book, about a nice elderly man who reads books about other elderly men. Stay with me. In the book, there are some teenagers who are not that mean, hey are just going through a tough time in there life A.K.A puberty. The man decides that the book was boring and cliche, so he does not like it. In fact, he laments this book. It is the vain of his existence. He goes out for a stroll to clear his head, and he sees some teenagers, just hanging around a street corner. He remembers the book and that teenagers were in it, and boy does he hate that book and everything it talks about (besides elderly men who read about other elderly men, such as himself). He yells "Damn it you punk kids, why do you ruin my life?", and calls the cops.
       I thought about all this, because in a book I just read called someday this pain will all be useful to you, the teenagers are totally awful people, and the main character James can see right through all of there facades and into their horrible inner core. Funnily enough, James is also a teenager and he hates it. Chin up James.
       So now we have seen that the reason people hate teenagers so much, is not because they are bad people. It is because of an overly complex system of ideas and theories that travels through peoples brains and confuses everyone.
       Or we just generally are horrible, rotten, rude, obnoxious, mean, evil, disgusting, menacing, distasteful, degrading to our society people.
       But mine sounds better.

I'm not interested

       Some people go into the woods to discover what they really want to do in life, to find their true passion, if you will. I have found that for me, learning about myself simply requires reading about one of these adventure.
       I am currently reading the book Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, which is a riveting story in which Chris McCandless A.K.A Aleander Supertramp, walks into the wild and dies, after touching the hearts of all who he hitchhiked. As not too much is known about Chris' death, the story is mostly about what Krakauer learned while talking to those who knew Chris. From what Krakauer describes, it seems that Chris was trying to get interested in life. From this I learned one thing:
       I am not interested in much. The entire story revolves around what Chris was interested in, and I found I was interested in nothing. Well, not nothing, I like baseball, skateboarding, and cooking, but I don't get season tickets, or practice every day, or learn to techniques. I'm just not one who gets amazingly enthusiastic about things. I am a drifter in life. I find little things in life that I like, and then throw them away, like a action figure under the tree on Christmas. And you know what?
     I am perfectly okay with that.

When you're running with scissors, you're bound to fall

I am reading a captivating book called running with scissors by Augusten Burroughs, and though this book is captivating, at most points I find myself repelled by the story line to an extent only thought possible by sleeping on a mound of dead bodies. For instance, at one point in the book, Augusten (the book is a memoir) is just walking home from school, when he opens up his door and low and behold, his mother is having sexual intercourse with another woman. An average day. I feel repelled by this not because that well, it actually happened to him, but because he glances at them and then says "can I borrow five bucks mom?" just the calm composure he keeps disgusts me a little, and I had to put the book down for a day, but I soon realized as repelling as it may be, the book is amazing, so I am back to reading it happily. It seems that every paragraph a new thing comes up, that either disgusts me, or makes me wonder how this boy lived his life so well. One point, Augusten is just sitting around in a doctors house, a doctor who is treating his mom because his mom is declared crazy, and the doctor's daughters just decide to hook each other up to  a shock therapy machine, they fry their brains, yell at Augusten, and then shock their dog to death. I can't bear the thought of this happening to an innocent dog, is just bad. Plain bad. The casualness of which all these events happen, and then the fact that it's a memoir, just repels me. I think I am repelled by it because of how unfamiliar all this is. I myself could never kill my dog, I love her to much. Oh by the way, Augusten's mom is not lesbian. She's married.

If I was a hero, I would sit down and cry

       In almost every book I have ever read, there is a hero. A person who solves the problem, either in a little way by picking up litter on the freeway, or in the book I am reading, the hunger games, saving someones life by beating up bad guys. Go Peeta. And after thinking about it, I realize that being a hero sucks. Every community has a hero, a person who sits on their stoop, and stares down teenagers, and these people are great. But they come at a price.
       Hero's have to give up their own lives, their own desires, to protect and serve us, the people. These people make sure justice is served, again, in little or big ways. In the hunger games, Katniss and Gale risk their lives hunting in the forest, so the people of their town can eat.  It is a true show of devotion, acts like this, and people like this, people who are heroes, are becoming scarce. Because people in society have become selfish. Selfish and scared. People only care about what directly affects themselves, and don't really give a crap about starving children in Africa, or even say the mentally challenged kid in their neighborhood. No, people are no longer truly heroes, and when a person comes along who is willing to help, they are usually cast away as a freak or an outcast. They are shunned because their actions are misinterpreted as prying, or just outright bad.
       Sooner or later, we all die, and we give up the chance to help. We give up the chance to go down in the history books as a good guy. And some people are okay with that. I am not saying that I am a hero, I am not. I simply hope people will read this and think, maybe I should. Maybe I should be a good guy. A hero.

It's a hard life

The book I am reading currently is called extremely loud and incredibly close, by Jonathan Safron Foer. The book, being about a child with autism who goes on a search for the answer to a clue left by his dad who was trapped in the second tower when the two towers fell on 9/11, is full of hard social issues. Death is a huge issue in the book. Not only does Oskar, the main character, experiance his dad dying on 9/11, but the whole thing for him is that throughout the book, Oskar meets new people who help him momentarily on his quest to solve his dads last puzzle, but then pass away. Jonathan Safron Foer almost says, what is the point of meeting new people, and forming bonds, they al just leave or die eventually. This is true, but some people say you have to remember the good times, and I agree. The point of meeting people is not to feel pain, but to feel glee, but the book really talks strongly on the subject. Another huge issue is trust. Paranoia and rumors plague Oskar throughout the book, steering him away from the truth. You can't just trust everyone, the book says, think about who you believe, and it's true. In society, you can't just believe everything you hear, you have to establish trust in people, and it is hard to trust just the right amount of people, you always trust to much, or to little, and that is why the world is not perfect. Because perfection can only be achieved through perfect ideals, and society will always fall short. But thats what makes it so beautiful. The issues it has. Imperfection is it's own kind of perfect.

Mr. C.S. Lewis, the genius, Christian man.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is without a doubt, one of the best pieces of writing ever written. It is creative, thought provoking, and all around great book. People who have read it once will realize the amazing work they have read, and will stand humble in its greatness. I, now having read it twice, stand humble in even more  greatness, as I have done some research into the life of C.S., and came up with some very interesting things.
             Narnia is this crazy imaginative world, right? And it must have taken ages to create such a well thought out world of wonder. Well, it did, but it's not what you expect. When C.S. was 11, he spent almost the entire year up in his attic, creating a world of boxes called, Boxen. C.S. said himself that this was where most of Narnia came from.
                Have you ever noticed how Narnia has no adults except for a crazy professor? When C.S. was 9, his mother died, leaving him to the care of his careless father. You can see how he might have found it hard to put adults into the book.
                I personally feel that the most interesting thing I learned about C.S., is that he is a devout Christian worshiper. At first, this added nothing to the story for me, but later I did a little more research, and found out that in olde' Christian times, every animal meant something. I carefully examined each animal, and found that Lions were the symbol for royalty and wisdom, so Aslan was a perfect match. Beavers were the symbol for helpfulness and kindness. And woman are a symbol of temptation and lust, and that added a whole new meaning to the turkish delight chapter. Researching the author is a great way to give new meaning to an already great book, and I encourage you to try it out.